1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a distillation-reaction system wherein a portion of the heat of reaction is recovered and used to operate the distillation.
2. Related Information
In combined reaction/distillation systems, such as the catalytic distillation system, where the catalyst is present in a form suitable to serve as a distillation structure; the heat of reaction generated in the reaction zone is utilized to reduce the energy requirement of the distillation process, i.e., reboiler duty. This is indeed the case when the key separations occur in staging within and above the reaction zone. On the other hand if key separations occur in staging below the reaction zone, heat of reaction does not reduce the heat duty to the column but simply increases condenser cooling duty.
An advantage of this invention is a flexible and efficient method that makes use of the heat of reaction to reduce reboiler duty in reaction-distillation systems in which the key separation occurs prior to reaction.